Lost Friends

This blog is just going to be my own personal diary, my true thoughts on everyone in my life (obviously anonymous) and an insight on how my mindset and my life change throughout the years. What inspired this was a minor fall into depression and a long binge-watching of Gossip Girl. My life isn’t as interesting or dramatic as the upper east side in New York, but there’s still a lot of craziness that goes on where I live now. I’m almost sad to move away so soon when there’s so much drama. However, my first topic will reveal why I’m much happier to be leaving.  

Let me start out with this, I am homeless in a big city full of drug addicts, traumatized young adults, and some of the messiest people I've ever met. When I decided to finally take a chance and move away from my mother and start my own life, I knew things wouldn’t be easy. I am lucky to be younger and have a variety of different resources that make sure I always have a roof over my head and food in my belly, so in that regard I am grateful. I guess I can be grateful for the opportunity to find out who I am, as I am forced to face situations that trigger old wounds. Recently, I have decided that I am not meant to be around people. 

That may sound depressing and pessimistic but hear me out. I met two people, both of whom I thought could be life long friends.  I am a borderline alcoholic and coke addict, and I often use to make myself more social, lively, and relaxed. I have always been somewhat of shut-in as I never had any real close friends growing up besides maybe a few, which I've seem to have lost. I never stayed in a school for more than two years since my mom was in the military, and everyone else already had their close friends. You can imagine it’s hard to develop any sort of meaningful relationship. 

I can’t lie, no matter what I may feel about my mother now, she was the closest thing I’ve had to a true best friend. She understood everything about me, even things I didn’t even understand about myself. She knew how to comfort me, she loved me even when we hurt each other, and she was always the first one to defend me whenever someone was hurting me. Many of my old school’s staff hated her and possibly me because she was always in the office cursing them out for not doing their jobs. Let me be clear, I wasn’t severely bullied or anything, but as a person of color in a predominantly white area there were some issues.  

It didn’t help that I was non-attractive, pimple-faced, socially awkward (maybe a more awkwardly social hyperactive gremlin back then) that did anything and everything to please everyone else. I can admit, I was very obnoxious, and my insecurity seemed seeped through my pores like the oil that coats my skin. I know everyone has the embarrassing moments and it’s fine to make mistakes so long as you learn from it. However, that will not stop me from wanting to kill myself every night from remembering my past. I would hope that I’m growing as a person now. 

But as I said, there are still old wounds that were only temporarily healed because I isolated myself from the world and therefore didn’t have to deal with any sort of problem. I regret not being more social, because it’s so much harder now. Ironically, I’ve realized I’m better when I take more time to myself, however I must learn how to not completely isolate so I can still make healthy connections. I’m considering cancelling plans with a friend tomorrow, which I’m not sure if that’s a healthy decision. I’ve been so drained recently; I’ve been acting like someone else and it’s tiring. 

I would like to say that it’s everyone else’s fault and they tried to change me or made me feel like I couldn’t be myself, but I have always been this way. It just wasn’t until I went returned from 3 years of no human contact to throwing myself into and endless pit of socialization and perception that I realized just how bad it was. Covid was my first excuse, but then I started to enjoy being alone a little too much. It got so bad to the point I was covering my windows with blankets and would have a panic attack every time I went outside to walk my dog for 15 minutes. Fortunately, even though there are remnants of my time in my self-made prison, I can say it’s gotten better. 

Now you probably want to know what I was talking about earlier which started my rambling in the last seven paragraphs. As I mentioned, I had two people in my life which I am not sure I want to be around anymore. I can’t say I’m completely innocent, but I also don’t think I was completely in the wrong. It started with the alcohol for me, I thought I would be more fun to be around if I loosened up. People always told me they like me better when I’m drunk, and I went with it.  

Now my friend, let’s call them Alex, had made me feel somewhat comfortable to be a bit socially awkward. They’re the type of person who doesn’t really give a fuck who you are, how you act, or what you do so long is it’s not extremely bad. They’re favorite catch phrase is, “I’m not shit”, which I can relate to in some ways. Recently though, I guess I was a bit too myself, especially since I had too many shots of a bottle of 1800, along with another few shots of peach vodka. Now, you all know that drunk people can be some of the most egregious people in the world.  

Apparently, I was one of those people, which was not made aware to me until a few nights ago. In summary, I was too oversensitive, I kept asking for reassurance on a situation, I had no awareness of my surroundings which was unsafe, and I was being too loud and annoying. I can’t lie, hearing this kind of upset me, but I tried to think about they're criticisms with an open mind. They told me they mainly just wanted to be safe, which from a logical standpoint is the right thing to do. The night went on and friend number two, let’s call them Jayden, told me any sort of romantic feelings for me was gone. For context, I was still figuring out my feelings for another person and me and Jayden had our own little rendezvous, which they gave me two weeks to make official. 

However, that night they decided it was over because they didn’t want to be a second option. I understood that, and honestly, I’m not sure if I felt anything real for them, so I couldn’t really be mad. My ego took a hit, but no matter how I feel, it was unfair of me to even put them in situation in the first place. And after thinking about it I also might have put that idea in their head. Drunkenly the night before, I told them I still had feelings for them and that I didn’t want them to feel like a second option. My horrible attempt at reassurance resulted in the conclusion it probably should have. Now this wasn’t what caused me to want to cut off all ties, but it did add to my frustration. 

No one told me how I was acting, although it is my responsibility to be self-aware, however I wish someone would have talked to me beforehand. Another thing was that I felt like I wasn’t being listened to the entire time I had been friends with them. I keep replaying the moments where they would interrupt me or straight out just tell me to shut the fuck up. I didn’t say anything, which in this case makes me a bit of a hypocrite, I just thought I was being overdramatic and told myself it was fine. Speaking of hypocrisy, I noticed I wasn’t allowed to treat them the same way they treated me. 

They never treated me terribly wrong, but they often insisted I was dumb and even called me slow, which I tried to laugh off because in truth I can be very forgetful and absent minded. Even less appreciated was the way they seemed to treat me like a child, like I was incapable of doing anything myself. Telling me things I already knew, taking things out of my hand, over monitoring me. Ironically, all these little things made me feel like I had to disassociate from the situation to remain calm, which in turn proved their point. Every time I was around them a became brain-dead, happy go lucky dog.  

On top of that the one the reasons I was called annoying was because I cared too much about the situation with Jayden. It’s weird, inside I didn’t really feel that bad, but another part of my mind kept screaming that I was a bad person if I wasn’t more empathetic. I was told they had other people they could be with, which good for them, and that I need to stop caring about it so much. If caring too much is the problem, then I feel like they shouldn’t be micromanaging every little thing I do. I am completely capable of taking care of myself, but I allowed them to treat me like this for so long it became my personality to be the dumb one. 

One last thing before the bomb went off was that they were allowed to call me names, joking or not. “For the streets” and “a ho” for not knowing my feelings yet even though I only kissed the other person. Me and Jayden got further than I ever did with them, and they’ve had 10x more sex than I have. “This bitch” for doing anything remotely myself, weird, or anything they considered to be stupid. The one time I called Jayden a bitch (which I don’t remember saying, but I was drunk) and she swore on her kids she would have beat my ass if it weren’t for the fact we were at a party. Alex was already stressing trying calm me down, and for a second it was working, until I felt physically threatened. 

One thing about me, the moment you want to put hands on me, it’s over, no forgiveness. Especially since I never did anything that bad to warrant it. The huge argument we were having was because I wanted to drink more, and both of them were controlling the amount I drank. They insisted I couldn’t take care of myself I didn’t need to drink anymore. One of their arguments, although it was halfway a joke was that I pronounced liquor, “li-core” in French accent.  

I know I’m usually quiet and can be kind bland, but I didn’t realize that me having any sort of personality meant I was about to get alcohol poisoning. I was frustrated because everyone else got to drink as much as they wanted, even more than I, and I was the only one being monitored like I’m going to go off the rails if I drink a white claw, which was the last bit of alcohol I wanted. Let me say this, I did get alcohol poisoning twice in the past, and because of my body weight if I don’t eat enough, it can be easy for me to get drunk. Fortunately, unfortunately, those two trips to the hospital taught me how to control myself. I was a bit looser when I was just with Jayden, Alex, and one other person I was cool with, but I felt like I was doing the same things everyone else was, even when they’re sober. As I kind of alluded to earlier, I’m assuming because I’m normally more of the quiet one.

It seems to me it’s absurd for me to be so happy or have an emotional moment without everyone freaking out. It may be different from they’re perspective, but that’s how I feel. To be fair, before I even started drinking, I did agree to let them control how much I drank. And later, the night I agreed again because we were staying the night, and they told me I could only have a little bit more before I was cut off. It made more frustrated, but I let it go for the sake of the party.  

If I drank more than that, the host would kick me out. I just wish I was able to speak for myself, I was literally kicked out of the room about the conversation about ME and my drinking. It was two against one, which after the conversation I wasn’t allowed to be a part of it was the whole party against one. There was a work around though, if I had eaten and drank more water, they would consider letting me drink more. I ate six slices of pizza, two boneless buffalo wings, and I was drinking plenty of water.  

I didn’t even ask for more vodka, as I said, it was a white claw. However, Jayden saw me asking for it and immediately said no. I argued that I had eaten and was okay, but the bought up the fact I would be kicked out if I drank anymore and it was disrespectful to the host if I drank anymore against their say so. I went to the room where I thought they were, where I saw someone sleeping so I went back out since I couldn’t find the host. I argued with Jayden, and it was getting more heated, which led to the host coming back out and Alex taking me to the side.  

I asked the host themselves if it was okay and they were about to say yes, as other people had advocated that they had seen me eat and drink water. Jayden still insisted I was too drunk, which pissed me off even more. Somewhere in the mix I called them a bitch, they threatened me, I told them to put their money where their mouth is, Alex held me down with the rest of the party trying to keep us separate, and I was told to leave, which I obliged. I have no idea what was going to happen if I hadn’t left, but I knew if I continued there would be no redeeming myself from my already low standing. The cherry on top is that I feel like everyone else views me as the aggressor, even though I wasn’t the one who mentioned violence in the first place.  

In fact, Alex was trying to get all three of us to have a private conversation before they randomly pulled out that threat. I’m assuming there must be a deeper issue here for them to react that way, because otherwise I feel like that was completely unwarranted, and I don’t feel bad. I was trying to have a good time, I advocated for myself for the first time, and I was punished for it. Albeit in an angry manner, I had finally begun to let them know I didn’t appreciate the way they always talked to me, right before I was told to shut up once again. This was apparently further proof I was too drunk because I was the one who wasn’t listening and interrupting people.

I could barely get a sentence out without someone telling me to shut the fuck up because my words aren’t important to them. It wasn’t just Jayden, it was Alex, it was everyone else, but I guess at least they were more polite with it. I am so tired of people not caring what I want to say but also telling me I don’t communicate. What is the point when I am shut down every time? I shouldn’t have let it go when I felt frustrated before, but now they expected me to be obedient once again. 

This time, I don’t care, I want to do what I want to do, I don’t want to talk to anyone, I don’t give that much of a fuck about other people’s problems, and I’m tired of pretending that I do. Right now, I am focusing on myself and my career, which I should have been doing in the first place. The side of me that is so afraid of missing out had me losing sight of why I moved here in the first place. Get a job, go to college, get my own apartment, get my own car, and then maybe some therapy and meds. I would also like to add that I haven’t been on my Lexapro for about a week now, but I only started a few weeks ago so I’m not sure if that made too much of a difference in my behavior.  

I was so worried about getting drunk, getting high, chasing meaningless fantasy romances, proving I was worthy of love, and trying to maintain friendships which only drained me in the end. Jayden is never going to be a part of my life ever again, which I’m sure they feel the same. Alex, I’m not so sure, a part of me wants to reach out and talk it over, but another part feels like it’s useless. They did try to call me twice the next day, which I missed both times, once because I didn’t feel like talking, the second missed call was because I was sleeping. First time, I couldn’t bring myself to speak to them verbally, there was too much anger for me to talk, which in retrospect I should have communicated. 

I did text her back because all they wanted to know was if I made it home safely, which I did go home with a strange person that neither of us knew all too well. I can say that was an unsafe decision that was made because I was feeling impulsive and just wanted to escape. If the person that drove me home had malicious intent that would have been on me. I let them know I was okay, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk, so I just left it at that. I left a message for the second call as well, however still not feeling it, I simply said, “What’s up? which she saw and didn’t reply. 

At least they may have tried to talk to me, and I may have missed my last opportunity to talk to them even if I wanted to. I’m still focusing on my plan, but even with what I said earlier, I can’t say there isn’t a part of me that doesn’t miss them. We used to cuddle and watch movies and go to sleep together. Our favorite show was Scandal, which sometimes I’ll admit I wasn’t fully paying attention, but my attention span is fried.  

After a while of watching any show or piece of media, I need to do something else. I usually play an easy game on my phone so I can at least pick up the majority of what’s happening by ear, which I know ruins about 80% of the experience. I'm writing this right now while listening to Vivarium. I could of just told them to turn off the show, but I liked just being silent and watching something. I liked being around them in general, even if it was something like visiting their, let’s say their favorite convict, in jail. I liked getting drunk and doing nonsense and not giving a fuck because we’re drunk and together. 

I liked listening to them talk about all the updates to their crazy love life and all the new drama I missed out on because I’m always inside now that I have housing. I liked watching them do their makeup and fix their wig, and I bought the perfect shoulder length green wig that looks so gorgeous on them. As much as I don’t like being bossed around, a little, less defiant, part of me likes the way they lead me around while I follow them mindlessly because they make me feel calmer. Contrary to what they might believe, I’m always on high alert, to my own detriment. My heart starts pounding when I’m alone and someone walks too close to me.

I resist the urge to carry my bag too close because some morally superior part of my brain convinces me that I’m racist or being prejudice to an innocent stranger. I have to blast some sort of noise in my ears because I can hear not so real people dissecting every little thing I did wrong and tearing me apart. I must resist the urge to stare down every person that walks into the room or happens to be in my line of sight. I must schedule my way around everyone else to ensure minimal people are around. I have to fight just to stop myself from looking so angry all the time because I know I look like a psycho but in reality, I’m stressed out of my mind. I have to fight every day because I’m so out of it all the time because everything is a trigger somehow. 

Even smiling feels like a chore, it’s a politeness I try to give in order to try and look normal and at least not seem too stuck up to even look at them. But also, sometimes it’s weird to look at them so I have to frantically avert my gaze before someone notices. And when it’s really bad I suddenly forget how to make any sort of normal facial expression and end up looking like the crack addicts outside. I am disassociated and yet too aware all at once, I feel so tired and crazy all the time. The only way I feel sane is with my headphones and in the dark of my room. 

Showers are nice, and I love doing skin care and eating good food, which I’m trying to be more consistent on. It kind of helps, but only so much. When it was just me and Alex, I felt a little more at ease. They frustrate me sometimes, but I love them so much, and I know in my heart I don’t want to let it go. But is it time? Is our friendship something that will have to be fixed only once I am? 

Live, laugh, and most importantly fuck you, 

Caligo 

(Thanks for reading)